#when it would be rendered null and void

[dykedvonte]

I think it’s real interesting that Jimmy cut enough of Curly’s leg off to feed the entire crew. It’s wasteful, it’s a risk that could’ve killed Curly (all the blood loss and shock) but it also shows the exact Captain Jimmy was.

More was lost than gained as is what happens with most of his actions and it was at the expense of others. No matter of it was through delusion, he kept taking from the people, the person he expected to do the most from him and believed the act of servicing him was one that benefited them all.

It was a celebration, not a feast, he did not need a cake nor was one allotted to him anymore per company policy. But Jimmy needed to be the captain Curly was and he got to slice into something didn’t he?

[tacticalprincess]

MDNI — cw: f!reader, car sex, age gap

farmhand!könig who can’t get enough of farmer’s daughter!reader….

⋆ ˚｡⋆୨୧˚ 🌾

he’s always pestering you, making it impossible for you to complete your chores on time most days. he’s addicted to the playful gleam in your eyes when you look up at him, the way your soft body feels in his rugged hands. the excitement that thrums under his skin as the two of you dance around your overprotective dad, sharing a secret that tethers you together long after you leave his shed at night, lingers thick in the air at the dinner table and in passing. the more of you you give to him, the worse his craving for you gets, and the less he seems to care about getting caught.

he sneaks a hand over your mouth and lifts you into his old, beat up truck while you’re taking your dry sheets off the clothesline, the sun hot and heavy overhead. you squeal against his palm, writhing in his hold before he sets you on his broad lap, letting you turn to face him.

“don’t do that! you scared me.”

he laughs it off, already snaking his large, calloused hands under your shirt to thumb at your hip pudge. cant waste any time when he has you alone. insincere apologizes mumbled into the soft, sweat slick skin of your neck, huffing in your sweet scent. “cant help myself with you teasing me like this. bending over in these tiny shorts, showing all the animals your ass.”

you giggle, back arching into the older man’s greedy, firm touch, angling your head away to give him more access to your neck. “the cows weren’t exactly my target audience.”

“talking about me, liebchen.” he clarifies. the strong smell of musk and mud invades your senses, the soft fabric of his white tee chafing against your hard, braless nipples through your flimsy shirt. “dirty little girl, aren’t you? going to get me in trouble one day, i know it. what would your father do if he knew his daughter was trying to seduce his best farmhand?”

he renders your ability to speak null and void when he slots his hands into your shorts and squeezes you for all you have to offer, spreading your cheeks and making you grind your hips down on his hard bulge, the friction from your jeans borderline painful against your clit. groans throatily at how wet you are already, his fingers slipping into your hole to gather your slick before he retracts it entirely, showing you how it sticks to his thick digits. “hm? looks like this cute little cunt missed me too.” a cocky grin plagues his sharp features, smearing your juices over your pouty lips dirtily, just to see your face scrunch up in disgust. he grabs your chin, pulling you forward to lick it off.

it’s all happening too fast, exhilaration clinging to your bones, heat gathering at your core. you look around the field warily, mind racing with doubt but your body betrays you, bucking into his mouth when you feel him litter sloppy, wet kisses along your chest, pulling down the strap of your shirt to let your cute boobs spring free. if it wasn’t hot already, you’re burning up now. “könig, not out in the open like this. what if daddy sees?”

“i’ll be quick, maus. just want to play with you.” he promises, though you have a sneaking suspicion it won’t be over that soon. “can you feel how hard you make me? you’re all i can think about, it’s impairing my ability to work. cant have that, can we?”

decidedly, you don’t want to be the cause of a sudden switch in the quality of könig’s farm work, or at least that’s what you tell yourself when you let him push your shorts to the side, sitting yourself down on his thick, hard manhood. he swallows every heavenly noise that tip from your soft lips onto his tongue, clashing teeth and jaw from desperation. lets you grit your kitten nails into his scalp for purchase, hot bodies pressed flush together in the cramped space while he lifts and drops you down until your thighs start to tremble and lock around him. the heels of your boots dent into your plush thighs, his are planted to the floor as he pile drives his hips into you, thrusts deliberate and meticulous in a way that awakens sweet parts you didn’t know you had.

it’s a shame, he thinks, having to hide away in a dirty truck with such a pretty thing like you. too soft and sweet for a man like him, but his addiction to you makes you impossible to resist. it’s unclear who’s corrupting who in this situation.

if you were back home with him in austria, he would’ve proposed to you already, declaring you as his for everyone to see. as it is, he bounces you on his cock until you’re seeing stars, the ambience of the farm surrounding you, with the slowly setting sun as your witness.

[cherrytimemachine]

Character Breakdown; Rodimus

Ayeee, it's Prime time!

How I feel about this character: I love him I love him I love him. He's such a depressed mood in G1, and I love the contrast of Hot Rod being his daredevil kid who doesn't take things seriously enough and then him becoming Rodimus Prime and he no longer smiles, he's depressed, his humor is now more sarcastic and dry, and he can't take the crushing weight of the primacy. He doesn't want to be in charge, but he has to, and all he wants is to live up to what Optimus built, but Optimus is such a towering figure compared to him that no matter what he does, he can't match the same feeling people get when they think about Optimus as a leader. He knows he can't be like Optimus, he can't inspire people like Optimus could, so he doesn't try. He gives up before he starts, which is why he doesn't try to be more poised and controlled like Magnus tells him to be. Optimus is so beloved that there's no point in trying to be great because he will never be as great as Optimus, and the meta of kids in the 80s hating Rodimus because he replaced Optimus is a real life example of the narrative around Rodimus Prime.

All the people I ship romantically with this character: Magnus. Magnus is my biggie. I don't mind seeing him shipped with Megs in MTMTE, but my favorite will always be G1 Rodimags. They are each other's steady presence. Both of them have doubts about their own capabilities, but the other is always there to reassure and help them along their way when they're struggling. Magnus often chastises Rodimus for his lack of tact in serious situations, but it isn't mean, he simply wants Rodimus to think more before he acts. Magnus himself is a disciplined figure who is a contrast to Rodimus's jump-into-action type thinking, and it's good for both of them to function as the other's opposite to get a well rounded thought process. Anyway this has been a Rodimags propaganda post.

My non-romantic OTP for this character: Arcee and Springer in G1 definitely, and Optimus as his big brother/father figure that he looks up to but struggles to live up to his legacy. His Hot Rod dynamics are silly and sweet, and his Rodimus Prime dynamics are more stunted because he's trying to be the leader they need.

My unpopular opinion about this character: He was really unlikable in the first half of MTMTE. While I found him funny and entertaining at times, he was very self centered and often insulted others or outright ignored their concerns. He gets better when Megatron shows up because they both are forced to accommodate the other's presence when neither of them want to be around each other. Rodimus becomes less impulsive in his decisions and actively apologizes for his previous mistreatment of Drift. Still can't get over just how mean he was to Red Alert in the written portion after volume 4, which I made a whole post about.

One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon: I wish that the G1 cartoon took more time to actually wrap up Rodimus's character development in a satisfying way. G1 often has good ideas for a plot narrative, but because the show is supposed to be nothing more than a glorified toy commercial, they often don't treat their ideas with the care and thought that would make them actually matter to the story in the long run. The end of Rodimus's ark is that he just sucks it up and eventually he gladly hands the Matrix back to Optimus, and instead of his pre established depression and self doubt mattering more to his character in later episodes, it gets brushed off for the sake of newer characters being introduced. I did like the Hate Plague episodes, but how it ended really overshadowed all that Rodimus was stacking up to be. His development is rendered null and void by Optimus returning and taking over again. It's like nothing ever happened for Rodimus. He's back to being Hot Rod, and we don't see much of a change in how he behaves due to his experiences. Aside from that, more continuities should incorporate that idea into their versions of Rodimus. It would be great if we could see his ark done well and explore what it means to take on a position when your predecessor is so highly regarded that it's impossible to live up to his image.

[thoughtportal]

With the success of a motion of no confidence against Prime Minister Michel Barnier's government, the period of political uncertainty is set to intensify. Lire en français

On Wednesday, December 4, French Prime Minister Michel Barnier entered into the history of the Fifth Republic. He became the first head of government to be toppled by a vote of no confidence after having triggered Article 49.3 of the Constitution to force a bill through Parliament without a vote.

This could plunge the country into a new period of political uncertainty, paving the way to other unprecedented developments, given the particular context. Risks of deadlock, potential solutions, the future of the budget... Here's an overview of the main questions raised by the political crisis.

Is the prime minister forced to resign when a motion of no confidence is passed?

According to Article 50 of the Constitution, when the Assemblée Nationale adopts a motion of no confidence, the prime minister "must" tender his resignation to the president. "There is no ambiguity about the fact that the government immediately resigns" if such a motion is passed, said Constitution specialist Julien Boudon, a professor of public law at Paris-Saclay University. Stéphanie Damarey, a professor of public law at the University of Lille, agreed with him: "No deadline has been set, but it would be hard to understand why the resignation should not be presented to the president immediately."

What would become of the bills tabled by the Barnier government?

According to several law experts interviewed by Le Monde, with the government toppled, all the texts currently under discussion are immediately buried. This includes the budgetary texts under discussion in Parliament, and, the most emblematic of all, the budget bill for 2025.

Mathieu Carpentier, a professor of public law at Toulouse-Capitole University, disagrees. According to him, "nothing in our recent parliamentary history justifies maintaining that the overthrow of the government renders its texts null and void." The only successful motion of no confidence, passed in October 1962 against Prime Minister Georges Pompidou's government, was followed by a dissolution of the Assemblée Nationale, "which rendered all pending texts null and void," continued the law expert. But the situation is different today, as the president cannot call for legislative elections before July 2025 at the earliest.

Is there a risk of a government shutdown?

With the government overthrown, the chances of Parliament adopting a budget for 2025 are remote. Deadlines are too tight for a new draft prepared by the next government to be examined by the Assemblée Nationale and the Sénat before December 31.

Although it is technically possible for the government to be unable to spend or collect revenue on January 1, French law has safeguards in place to prevent a situation similar to the American government shutdown, where government activities come to a halt due to the lack of budget agreement. This scenario has never occurred in the history of the Fifth Republic.

How does the president choose the prime minister?

In theory, the president has the power to appoint the person of his choice as prime minister. He is under no legal obligation to choose a member of the largest group in the Assemblée Nationale. However, institutional logic does not allow him to override the opinion of the majority of MPs, since a government going against their wishes could quickly be toppled by a motion of no confidence. The president is therefore expected to choose a candidate likely to win the support of a majority of MPs or at least not to provoke the rejection of a majority of them.

Nothing would prevent Macron from renaming Barnier as prime minister.

What is a technocratic government?

If the situation remains deadlocked, the appointment of a "technocratic" government could be the way out. This would involve appointing non-partisan ministers to manage current affairs and implement certain consensual reforms, with the support of the various political blocs in the Assemblée on a case-by-case basis.

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This type of configuration has occurred in Italy during various crises in the past, but it has never lasted very long. It would be difficult for such a government to maintain itself over the long term, given its lack of legitimacy at the ballot box. Moreover, this scenario would quickly come up against the difficulty of drawing up a new budget for 2025, at a time when the various political groups have already been struggling to reach a consensus on budget texts in recent weeks.

What is a caretaker government?

When a prime minister resigns but his successor has not yet been appointed, he and his ministers remain in office temporarily to manage current affairs, in other words to ensure the continuity of the state and its services and thus the essential day-to-day running of the administrations under their responsibility. "A minister who resigns is no longer really a minister but acts as one and can't do just anything. There are limits to his or her power," Benjamin Morel, a lecturer in public law at the University of Paris-Panthéon-Assas, told Le Monde in July 2024.

In principle, a caretaker government tasked with handling current affairs cannot take measures of a political nature: it cannot create new rights and duties for the population, take measures not already provided for by existing and enacted laws or make important appointments. However, it can implement laws that have already been voted.

The powers of a caretaker government are not restricted when it comes to urgent measures. With the government censured, this emergency exception could enable the Barnier government to propose a special bill by the end of the year. This bill would authorize the government to continue collecting existing taxes until the budget for the year is voted on.

When can the next dissolution of the Assemblée Nationale take place?

A return to the ballot box is generally seen as an option for clarifying or unblocking a tense political situation. However, in this case, this is not currently an option. Article 12 of the Constitution prohibits "a new dissolution within one year" of the previous election.

The Assemblée Nationale elected in July 2024 is therefore expected to sit until at least next summer. For public law professor Boudon, "the new dissolution could only take place, at best, on July 8, 2025, one year after the second round of the last legislative elections." This would mean putting the French to the vote at the end of July or mid-August, in the middle of the summer vacations.

Romain Geoffroy, Romain Imbach and Assma Maad

[darkeangel]

Been thinking about Gundam SEED lately and how i think its both simultaneously one of the greatest entries in the franchise and one of my least favorite Gundam shows.

I think what bothers me the most is how Cosmic Era has some of the most comprehensive world-building outside of UC and how it all kind of gets abandoned as the show progresses.

It’s hard to articulate, but the original SEED world is so well thought out. Artificially Enhanced Humans creates a genetic disparity which results in conflict. Humans being Humans, they throw nukes at the problem, so the Smarter (sic) Humans create a technology that renders nuclear power null and void. This in turn results in the development of battery-powered mobile suits; super weapons that can only be effectively controlled by the Genetically Superior Humans.

This all makes sense. And all that follows is logical. Of course the MS stay plugged in until the last possible second of launch, to maximize battery life. Of course they use physical weaponry, for the same reason.

And this in turn leads to the Earth Alliance developing weapons that have special armor that nullifies physical weapons. They perfect energy efficient beam weapons to have a one-up on their enemy, but their natural use OS isn’t perfected until the SUPER coordinator helps develop it. (Also maybe the neutral nation also develops it simultaneously, but I digress)

And the mobile suits of ZAFT are logical. Of course the ground types use a more stable quadruped design. Of course the underwater suits use a solid shell chassis, and sound-based weaponry.

I like how they draw attention to the fact that beam weaponry has a higher attenuation rate in atmosphere. I like how they make an issue that a mobile suit designed for space combat would need its auto-balancers readjusted for desert combat. I like how all the 1st gen Earth MS are based on the Strike, the one mobile suit they still had access to. (I like how the M1 Astrays are all based on the MBF prototypes for the same reason)

I enjoy how well thought out everything was and explained within the series and I get annoyed how it all gets sidelined for bigger spectacle and drama. And stuff stops making sense. I can see how Stargazer works; mirage colloid particles create a solar sail for interstellar travel when hit by a giant space laser. I can see that. So how does that turn into whatever the fuck the Destiny does? How is that the same system?

I hate how everything devolves into “everything is Gundam”. SEED has a spectacular MSV catalogue, but all the animation focuses on is Gundam Beam Spam. (And that’s a shame, because almost no other Gundam does large epic battlefields like SEED does.)

I dunno. The power scaling jumps the shark somewhere around the end of the first series, and by the time we get to SEED Freedom, it becomes basically meaningless.

I know other Gundam shows have fantastical technology; psycho-frames and GN Drives and GUND format and whatnot. But almost every time that stuff is baked in from the start and remains consistent throughout, or has some logical progression to it. SEED seems to just be chasing “how can we make this even more badass?” and it loses its credibility in the process. We’re left with Jesus Yamato in his rebaked Strike Freedom and his “beats everything” forehead laser. For a show that started on the premise of “let’s take away the nuclear-powered robots and see what happens” it seems like a betrayal of what was actually a beautifully grounded and self-actualized Gundam AU.

I still like SEED. I still think it’s deserving of its popularity. I’m just…disillusioned with it.

[dirtytransmasc]

Modern Aocorro high school au: what if Spider was a harpist in his high school orchestra and Ao'nung was down bad about it.

Spider was already your classic high school heart throb. He was popular, buff, handsome, a little rough around the edges, yet still a total sweetheart.

For Eywa's sake, he carpooled his siblings to school or rode his skateboard to school, volunteered around town 24/7, used reusable straws, he'd hand his pocket change to anyone in need, and was known for getting into fights with bullies in the parking lot.

Not to mention that he had the prettiest golden curls and brown eyes anyone had ever seen (at least in Ao'nung's opinion).

So to say Ao'nung was crushing, hard, was probably the understatement of the century, and could you even blame him? The guy was perfect, an angel, and it was driving him insane.

He'd catch himself staring during gym practice, marveling at his muscles, cheeks flushing, or in the locker room when he took his shirt off to change, his heart pounding away in his chest.

he thought he couldn't be even more down bad for that boy than he already was, his confident personality rendered null and void when he was around, his tongue caught in the back of his throat, unable to do so much as squeak at him… until the day he caught him in the orchestra room, practicing.

Now, he had heard Spider was in orchestra and had even seen him rolling around some large black case around the school before, but he'd never actually caught what he played.

But walking past that half-opened door was how he found out the love of his life wasn't only a sweet handsome hunk of a guy, but he played the harp, the instrument of an angel.

The sheer audacity of this boy was getting out of hand, he swore to Eywa, he was gonna kill him one of these days with his impossibly hot antics.

He stands and watches as Spider presses up against his harp, eyes focused on his sheet music, hair tied up in a messy bun but a single golden curl hangs he keeps blowing out of his face, and his fingers strum along the strings, working the muscles throughout his hands and arms.

The sound of gentle music flowed from the gap in the door, and it sounded just as pretty as Spider looked, soft and sweet, but still robust, still full of base and bravado. It was so fitting.

Watching Spider's face quirk with focus and frustration and pride as he worked through the song made the other's heart swoon, he swore it must be palpating or maybe skipping beats. He just knows it wasn't beating right, especially as he rubs his hand over his chest and feels how heavy it beats against his ribs.

And thats when Spider just so happens to turn to see who was gawking at him from the hallway, and instead of telling him to stop staring or throwing a pissed-off glance like Ao'nung is sure most other's would do if they caught someone staring like he had been, Spider just smiled.

"Like what you hear?" he quipped, leaning forward to turn the page of his music binder.

"Y-Yeah, yeah, you're... amazing," he choked out an answer, coughing into his fist to try and cover up the stammer in his voice and the blush on his cheeks.

"You flatter me," he replied, sitting back and looking Ao'nung right in the eye before he looked away with an even brighter smile, and it was like his skin was set on fire by just that single glance. "Are you gonna come in or are you gonna keep standing out their like some weirdo?"

"Oh, I-I wouldn't want to bother, I was j-just passing by,"

"It's free period, it's why I'm in here all by my lonesome," he puts on a fake pout and bats his lashes in his direction for show, "keep my company yeah? I'm sure you've got nothing to do if you've already spent so much time staring."

He moved his bag off the chair next to him before patting it.

"Sit," his tone was warm and inviting and his eyes were soft and almost pleading, so he did, with a deep breath, he sat next to the other boy.

He managed to be even prettier up close, and Ao'nung had to tear his eyes away so he didn't make a fool of himself. He decided to turn his attention to the harp. It was beautiful, made of a soft, warm-toned wood, intricately carved and painted with the image of flowers he couldn't name off the top of his head.

"She's a beauty isn't she?" Spider asked

he only nodded at first, before feeling the urge to touch, his hand moving before he could think better of it, but he managed to stop himself before he made contact with he wood.

"Can I?" he asked, quite pitifully, finally making his own eye contact with the blonde. Eywa save him, he was too pretty, it was unfair. He felt butterflies tickling his stomach and his head getting fuzzy. Why didn't he run when he had the chance?

"Go ahead," he answered with a huff of laughter.

He tried to steady himself as he stroked a hand down the curved wood that he saw resting against Spider's chest earlier when he was playing, feeling the warmth from the other boy's skin still clinging to the wood.

His fingers sought out the strings Spider's rested on moments ago, the metal threading bit into his flesh ever so slightly when he ran his fingers down them.

"I catch you staring all the time y'know, you're not very good at hiding it."

Ao'nung feels his heart drop through the floor and into the stone-cold basement beneath them. Fuck. He fucked up, he fucked up so bad, Spider must think he's a freak-

"It's cute."

"What?" he didn't mean to ask that out loud, but when he did, he said it far too loud.

Spider just laughs at him, gently and without malice, his eyes crinkling into almost nothing, his cheeks going a little red, his nose scrunching a little. Ao'nung feels his heart swell.

"Oh, it's never subtle, especially since you turn bright red, and the second you realize I'm looking back, you turn tail and run away like you have the devil on your heels," he pauses to wipe the tears from his eyes, "It's just cute, adorable even. I kinda like having a not so secret admirer."

"You don't think I'm some total freak?"

"Nah dude.... who's to say I'm not staring back?" he said nonchalantly.

Ao'nung was sure his brain was melting, cause he just found out his crush might like him back? Potentially. And that was just simply mind-boggling, cause, he wasn't gonna sell himself short, but he never thought he could be on Spider's radar.

They hung out with different people, and he used to be an ass to his siblings before he transferred to be here, and sure he apologized and made up with them, he always seemed to hold a bit of a grudge.

"You are?" he had to ask.

"Mmmmmm, maybe a little," he replied with a cheeky grin plastered on his face. "I will admit, at first it was because I was trying to make sure you weren't being an ass, but, things might be changing."

Ao'nung nodded to himself, clearing his throat, trying to decipher what that could even mean. Was Spider saying he was starting to like him too? did he have a shot with him?

"Listen, the bells about to ring, so why don't I give you this," he pulled a pen from the spine of his binder, tearing the corner off of one of his sheet music, which felt oddly intimate, and wrote something down on it, before handing it to him.

It was his number. Spider just gave him his number.

"Text me? we can start gettign to actually know each other, and maybe you could start joining me in here during free period, I could give you some lessons on the harp if you'd like?" now Spider sounded a little sheepish.

Which somehow made Ao'nung feel a bit more confident, so for the first time in seemingly forever, he answered Spider with some level of confidence.

"Yeah, I'd like that, I'd like that a lot."

"Good, good, I'd like that too."

They were both smiling now. The bell rang. They both hesitated to break eye contact.

"I'll text you, promise." Eywa, he was making promises. Already. He really was a hopeless sap. But it felt right when Spider huffed a laugh at it, a hand coming up to cover his smile a little. He was flattered.

"You better, stalker," Spider laughed, finally starting to pack up his stuff.

"Rude," he faked a gasped, lingering in the door, knowing he had to get to class, and he needed to let Spider pack up so he wouldn't be late himself, but wanting to let the moment last just a little longer.

"I think staring is rude, but I think I'll give you a pass, so long as you stop running away when I catch you, deal?"

"Deal."

"And you have to meet me here tomorrow."

"I will, it's a date," the words slipped out of his mouth without thinking about how it could be interpreted, "oh, not like-"

"It's a date" Spider repeated.

Ao'nung found he could only nod. It's a date. Even if it wasn't like that, it was still nice to think about. a date with an angel.

"Now go, before you're late, wouldn't want you to get in any trouble." Spider crossed his arms and jutted out his hip like he was some disappointed mom or something.

"Right, bye Spider."

He waved goodbye. It was corny and childish, but he waved. Spider waved back. He had his number clutched tightly in his other palm. Spider had his phone clutched in his hands as if he couldn't wait for the message to come any longer.

"Bye Stalker."

He has a feeling he's gonna have to get used to that nickname, but as he rounds the corner, his chest still feeling warm and full of butterflies, he doesn't think he minds all that much.

[wawawawawawawawawawawawawa]

the amount of times i Do This must be a joke at this point but here i am. doing it once more. izaya's highschool videogame SCREAMS "i just found out i have aspd and i am NOT taking it well." and i shall explain how

a preface: wrt "how did he know in high school, don't you have to be 18?" you do.... with the dsm guidelines. japan, iirc, uses a conbination of the dsm and icd to diagnose mental illnesses, and the age stipulation isn't in the icd. also, shinra could have told him, and lbr shinra wouldnt care about strictly adhering to the age thing

anyway i went thru and highlighted different parts of the videogame's text, so i can easier explain which part means what. i'll primarily be focusing on the chronic boredom associated with aspd- since izaya's game deals with patience, most musings in it will be related to that boredom. but the boredom, especially izaya's, IS important, as its the boredom that drives him to do what he does. to be what he is.

(shoutout to miyukiwinter for the scan)

so... the red bit. this relates to izaya's worldview of the need to keep evolving to escape the mundane, and it not mattering if you aim high or low. now at this point, izaya was solidly in some shady shit and clearly on the path of the low aim. but the thing is, about aspd... the boredom is all consuming. you'll do ANYTHING to not be bored. i've seen people say they developed substance abuse problems to escape the boredom, and i confess... i've done it too. it truly is THAT bad

i say all this because... izaya will never be able to stop going lower, and lower, and lower. he's fated to fall forever. maybe he wouldve been able to brush his behavior off as teenage craziness, but with a diagnosis like aspd it becomes increadingly obvious that there is no "oh, i'll mellow out once i reach my 20s." it's not going to happen, at least, not without great effort. and lets be real, nobody has any faith in aspd's recovery rates, less so in the early 2010s, so izaya upon diagnosis would see NO FUTURE for himself. no escape from the cycle. he's trapped.

the blue bits are a bit more vauge, but the undertainty turning to loss evokes the next stage after the initial shock of diagnosis: grief. and make no mistake, there IS a grieving process with mental health diagnoses. you go from being shocked and scared, to being depressed and numb.

but there's... another layer to this, with aspd. you see it with cluster b disorders in general, but aspd is HUGE in the pop culture zeitgeist

the layer is, the idea that People Like That don't feel emotions. that any emotional display is false and an explicit ploy to mainpulate someone

and when this inevitably ends up untrue, you might start to feel... odd... about feeling those emotions people say you can't feel. and one of the biggest emotions aspd gets that with, is fear and by extension, anxiety.

some aspd people genuinely do feel reduced fear! but it's far from being a diagnostic criteria, and aspd can actually be comorbid with anxiety disorders. but scientific facts and wider culture rarely match up, so the idea persists

so izaya might have started to think.... was he ever truly anxious? or worried? was he really more rotten than people thought; was he just mainpulating people the whole time? does he really not feel anxiety? was his nervousness over things like shinra leaving him or hell, this diagnosis, rendered null and void?

and then we reach the teal portion.... despair

(just a sidenote, tumblr has no teal color option so it'll just be blue)

in this sense, "the hole" refers to the endless downward spiral, and his diagnosis- but not just having it. no, "the hole" most likely refers to the moment izaya developed it in the first place.

who are you, if you thought you were in control your whole life, but you found out that the reason you do the things you do were because of foeces beyond your control? who are you now, having a label you know will cause everyone to see you as nothing but a stereotype?

why was he still alive, suffering like this? what point is it to be alive, controlled by something you can't fight, forced to make your life worse and worse and worse, until you die young?

so now what? who did this to him?

in the game, the hatred is towards "the player." and honestly this could have multiple different meanings when applied to izaya's own life

does he hate god? was he raised religious, his father being a christian, and was this what made him lose faith? what loving god would condemn someone to suffer like this?

does he hate his parents? after all, it was their genetics that passed this down, their upbringing that nurtured it, their neglect that made him the way he was. is it their fault?

or... does he hate himself, for being the way that he is? for having it in the first place, for not being able to overcome it, for having such a bad reaction to it?

for being too cowardly to kill himself?

which brings us to the final segment. awareness.

he says outright, the game is depicting the player's life. in the game itself, this ties into his mockery of players, but in a meta sense, it could be a hidden admission that it's depicting his life

especially the talk of meaningless games- fooling around with nakura creating small gangs, betting pools, and his eventual adult pastimes of messing with people. is his life enriched? no, it's merely occupied, and he knows it. he might have repressed it as an adult, but here, in high school, at this moment, he knows.

and if he can never truly alleviate his boredom, never truly be fufilled, then he can act like he's in control all he wants, but he's no better than a man falling in a hole.

[gracebethartacc]

SUPER obsessed with your MLP rewrite currently!! this isn’t really a redraw ask, but I’d like to hear more of your Changling lore if possible! (or maybe more for the specific characters like Chrysalis, Thorax, Pharynx, and Ocellus?)

EYES GET SOOOOO WIDE HEHEHEHES YES I HAVE SO MANY CHANGELING HCS ALSO TYSM FOR LIKING THE AU WAHG <3

-changelings are made asexually via the queen laying eggs, while royal changelings are born sexually and are given extra love as larvae to become royals (if not they just become regular drones) (kindaaa like bee logic of queens being regular larvae that were just given extra care/certain diet) this means probably a decent small little chunk of the drones are actually potential heirs that just weren’t given the extra love/magic when they were young to develop that way so they just grew up as regular drones. They are, of course, never told this by chrys bc she sucks like that.

-bc of the asexual reproduction logic this means all changelings are technically the same sex but just identify differently (and bc shapeshifter just naturally can make their voices sound different to fit that as well)

-another hc is that rulers are always Queens, so clownfish logic if hypothetically pharynx or thorax took the throne they’d change to become Queen, not King, (tho the reformation renders that rule null and void bc they actually get to be unique from eachother so no more all identical sex yay) I think this would be fun to explore considering all the princesses for the ponies are ofc princesses so thorax is Thoroughly confused by prince shining armors existence bc Why Is He Not Female If He Rules Equal To Cadence ?????? And then learns ponies genders do not have any correlation to rulers and it’s literally just pure coincidence. Also by this logic chrysalis is trans but like. not really. Lol? They’re bugs their gender don’t really work that way so actually no she’s not trans

-changelings are meant to “reform”!! That was not just a new phenomenon !! None of them ever metamorphosed bc chrys just was keeping things the same/not changing for so long bc shes greedy and selfish and doesn’t wanna share love so basically rewired her entire species to remain in their “caterpillar” states. They’re only meant to steal love as to get enough magic to undergo metamorphosis in which they can now self make love for themselves and in turn share that magic with others, but Chrys never allowed that and just made them all remain starving for ages out of stubbornness.

-age on lobster logic (live as long as they have magic/love to feed from and only die from battle or injury) but thorax n pharynx i do think are still within adult pony age rn (so the idea is chrys is pretty old (not tia and Luna old tho) but she’s not immortal per say) pharynx is older while thorax is younger (probably late 20s phar (somewhere from 26-29 range maybe?) VS like rlly early 20s thor like right on the dot probably, seeing as a lot of ppl back when he was introduced assumed he was a teen based on voice/crystal hoof disguise but then that hc kinda faded after reformation made him more explicitly adult coded which is the take I always went with lol I never saw him as a teen/never thought of changelings with one to one direct pony ages)

-breezies and changelings are offshoots of the same species/are part of the same creature family, hence my breezies look really similar to the reformed changelings :3 (think maybe another mlp example to be like sirens and kelpies and hypocampus’s could also follow same species group umbrella logic as changelings and breezies and flutter ponies)

-speaking of— a changeling and pony hybrid would be the flutter ponies from the g1 toys!! :) (basically they’re just pony but w bug wings (but maybe in mine they will have a few other changeling traits as well))

-Royal changelings are the only ones with “horns” aka stingers in this case, and the only ones with unique accent colors while all the drones are just blue, more differences are extra eyes and the lil chest gem thingys

-love is a form of magic in the changelings case and has a physical magical form rather than it just being an emotion, both when they steal it as well as when sharing it/having it in their metamorphosis forms

-already obvious but reformed forms play on their desires/identity (thorax w long mane like he wanted bc it always was forced to be cut bc of all the drones having to look the same including the heirs so his mane was as long as it was allowed, and upon leaving he grows it out a bit and finally in reformed it’s the long style he wanted but never got :3 or pharynx stays pretty similar bc he prided himself in his status and the og changeling look)

-thorax was a fluke/not intended to be an heir BUT chrys thought it would be good to have a backup/spare for in case something happened to pharynx seeing as he was going to be in dangerous situations a lot but that means thorax is only royal in title bc he gets noooo respect at all the other drones hate him soooo much

-thorax is a people pleaser but NOT naive at all. He can smell a liar from a mile away which makes him getting taken advantage of by other changelings so often hurt more bc He Knows What They’re Doing And Falls For It Anyway Bc He Wants To Be Helpful Literally Anyway At All..

in other words my thorax is just a glorified version of the trope of girl pretends to be a bimbo/plays dumb to hide she’s actually really smart LOL…..

-pharynx very tough love w thorax/actually does care abt him (unlike chrys and the drones) but he’d never admit it. Bc thorax hates stealing love pharynx will give him whatever love he gathered from his missions/patrols bc he thinks it’s gross/only gets what he needs to not be hungry which isn’t much (lol stupid doesn’t realize he’s aro lollll)

-pharynx gets such a huge ego from the fact he’s rarely hungry/not starving like the others bc “lollll im just built different bc I’m heir/Captain of the guard I think this is just a skill issue on yalls part lol lmao imagine starving and thinking love is good srs how do you guys eat this stuff and crave it no less it tastes awful” and they just look at him like “….bro???? What?????????????”

-I think in this vein this means sexuality is based on what form of love they prefer the taste of it’s like how Misquotes prefer specific blood types, so pharynx thinks all love tastes gross VS say thorax would prefer love from colts/thinks love from mares doesn’t taste good just like pharynx thinks (but with all of it in his case not just a specific type)

-post TWABA pharynx goes with chrys to stay with her with a few others acting as a resistance like we heard abt in the canon but never saw that slowly get picked up by the new hive until it’s just chrys and pharynx who also eventually caves bc he loves his brother/protecting his subjects and realizes chrys has been manipulating him esp post TWABA she gets a lot more explicitly cruel/harsh w pharynx as her small hive is picked off one by one she stops being all sugar coating and gaslighting and just gets Verbatim Abusive bc she’s done playing around her kid needs to lock tf IN if they wanna take back her hive (spoiler alert she will not take back her hive. Lol.)

-changelings have stingers for tongues that they can use to drain love directly when kissing victims bc I think that visual is very fucked up in a good way it’s icky and in line with their whole shtick (you can see this in my screenshot redraws on chrysalis)

-their disguises are never perfect, usually really small things are off, and if they take the form of a made up pony— (see: thorax w his pony disguise (both referring to canon (crystal hoof) and my version (orchid mantis)) —their eyes will always remain the same color and fangs will remain as well. Rule for all of them tho regardless of if they’re copying or original forms is their eyes will glow in dark/reflect light (think like cats/raccoons/deer or like for a media example nimona in the scene of the red siren lights making her eyes glow)

-ocellus not designed yet BUT I’d love to perhaps make her a sunrax kid/flutter pony in turn :3€ ocellus shimmer just has a nice ring methinks, though bc of my designs not fitting her canon one she’d probably get a redesign to include elements of both of them more (maybe white and orange/pink/red? Might snag elements from an old changeling oc of mine that was those colors as well to look like chrysalis with inverted colors plus fits my current thorax design, tho that makes me debate if she should be a ladybug like canon (iirc?) OR monarch butterfly bc orange but I think prob ladybug seeing as pharynx is a beetle it would feel like an odd jump to butterfly when none of the family are butterflies (pharynx is an iridescent beetle, thorax is an orchid mantis, and chrys is a mantis/if I make a metamorphosis design she’ll be a lunar moth) so ladybug feels more in line, though doesn’t mean some of the drones can’t be butterfly themed bc aforementioned they all get to be unique now/not identical

-on topic of ocellus I initially was gonna cut the school BUT I now think I’d wanna do it only if it was a slight timeskip/id change up the student six species n characters a bit so they’d not just be The Mane Six Two yk? This also means maybe cozy could still try to take over in my vers as well bc she’s a different species she has an excuse to use the schools melting pot status to her advantage (tho I’d have to think on it more later/rewatch that season bc my memory on it is rlly fuzzy)

-I think thorax at the start of befriending sunburst tried to keep his distance out of fear of hurting him on accident not so much on being caught, but ofc eases up as time goes w him

-mentioned before BUT I think my thorax’s voice is slightly different from canon (being this:)

No reason I just think his canon voice doesn’t perfectly match my thorax, another good option tho is adakias from one of my favorite musicals razias shadow (listen to the song the exit bc i actually had an animatic in the works for it that I never finished sadly but I plan to post snippets of what I had of it in a animation comp video soon :3)

Uh. I think that’s all,,, I am so normal about the changelings trust me bro ignore the massive wall of text 👍

EDIT IM MAKING BC NEW HC DROPPED SINCE MAKING THIS POST BUT ITS A LIL NSFW NOT REALLY ITS JUST KINDA FUCKED UP. Ok so basically Queen changelings have ovipositors ok? Both as sortof sex organs as well as their stingers in their mouths, so basically heirs are born via eggs being deposited into a living being(host) that can give the egg extra nutrients/love while the host is kept in a trance in one of the pod/cocoon things the changelings use to which the hatched heir will eat the remains when it escapes, very bug logic alright these guys are fucked up slash pos

BUT. this means that bc their stingers are also in their mouth this means heirs can be born to a pony regardless of sex, mare? Easy, womb, done. a stallion though? Sorry man ur getting eggs down ur throat by that bug ladies fucked up tongue sorrrryyyyyyyy womp womp

tho I think this could spark funny discussions w the bros (bc they obviously had different pony parents w the age difference) on them debating who hypothetically was a womb baby and who was a stomach baby to the horror of any normal ponies overhearing LMAO

[sicklyseraphnsuch]

MAYBE if the gods were still present and stirring up wars, i would find ludinus more compelling. but again, the gods already fixed the problem ages ago. i feel like the issue of whether a god is deserving of divinity is Not the Same conversation as whether predathos should be allowed out.

ludinus thinks that hes asking "should the gods be gods?" but what he ends up asking is "do you want to throw the world into oblivion - yes or no?"

like the former question has been rendered more or less null and void by virtue of how much a nonentity the gods have become. the question of deserving divinity is more compelling if ludinus had a different motivations that wasnt let me unleash a black hole to swallow our reality. it would also be more compelling if the gods were doing anything of significance and theyre... really not.

like who cares about the gods man? i just wanna race cars in the desert mad max style. i want to explore ruidus and hang out with cool bormodos. the gods arent stopping anybody from doing either. no freedom of choice is being infringed. ludinus goes on and on about the tyranny of gods when the gods already left the fucking room.

[twst-drabbles]

Baul 2

Summary: You hand Baul a fruit for him to peel and it leads to an unusual heart-to-heart that made you realize you may have messed up.

(More time travel shenanigans! Because I cannot resist. I like the thought of Baul giving an accidental hint and Janitor immediately mentally going "oh shit!" This is what the Janitor gets for being a fae magnet.)

You were given a strange fruit by Lilia for you to munch on. You didn't really know how to go about eating it, honestly. It looked like nothing you've ever seen, so instead of fumbling and potentially having Lilia snark at you, you left and sat down on a nearby log.

Before you know it, Baul exited the main camp and walked towards you. You both caught eyes and you just nodded to him in greeting. He gave one back before speeding up to sit right next to you.

Wordlessly, you handed him the fruit and Baul took it without question.

"You need something, Baul?" Rare was it of him to come to you. Whenever he wants to enjoy the silence, he'd usually do that by himself.

Baul took out a knife and began to peel the fruit. He took his time in replying.

"It won't be long now, will it?"

You raised an eyebrow. "…that's ominous. Mind being more clear?"

Baul sighed as he tossed the long peel into the leaves besides him. "I've heard Lilia and her Highness speaking of returning you home. To a place, far… far from here."

…yeah, you'll finally be able to go back to your time. There was no chance of being able to recreate the spell from scratch, but there was enough unique residual magical energy to manipulate and activate. All they need is to simply, let it flow into its most natural path.

"Very far. And I don't think I'll be able to visit anytime soon."

"Hmm, of course," Baul mumbled, eyes narrowing, "not when you have many friends and loved ones waiting for your return. And certainly not with this possibility of war rising high over our heads."

"Staying would do me more damage than good," your time travel isn't a secret but it's certainly hard to believe. Whether or not they believe you, you don't know, but at least Baul understands that where you're going, it's very far.

"…I once thought you a danger," Baul started, now evenly slicing the fruit, "then an intruder, then an annoyance, and then…"

You leaned forward. "And then?"

He looked up to the night sky. "And then… you became someone I can think of as a peer. Someone I can call a… friend, I suppose. And someone…"

"Hmm?"

Baul grabbed a slice of the fruit and handed it to you as he gave a most gentle smile, "And someone who I can make a promise with. A promise to cherish anything and everything they have ever given me. So that I may never forget what joys people such as you can bring."

…oh.

…oh no.

His eyes glowed with a tender light under the full moon, his body was leaning towards you as though wanting to get closer. And his smile. It was a rare sight and it was one you were hoping you were wrong about.

You were hoping that… that this wouldn't happen. That this tenderness wouldn't exist.

This is not coming from a place of arrogance. You're not assuming that you're such a catch that Baul would be willing to wait for you for four hundred plus years, rendering the existence of Sebek null and void.

It's his words, his promise to hold his memories of you close, so that he may never forget what humans are capable of. To hold close the things you have given him.

He made a promise to you.

You had already grabbed the slice Baul handed to you. He fell silent as he let go but didn't retract his hand. His eyes focused on your finger tips while you remain frozen in time.

When he made to reach closer, inching just a bit, you retracted and stuffed the slice in your mouth.

"Aren't promises too heavy for that?" You leaned back on the log, facing forward just so your internal storm doesn't show on your face, "You don't have to do that with my gifts. They're not some precious treasures you know? They're just things I make, do, and give. It's okay if you lose or replace them."

But you can't confront him in his face about it. You have to be careful, lest he shuts himself away, because you genuinely don't want to hurt him like that. Baul is… so similar to Sebek in how fiercely protective they are about matters of the heart. And the fact he was willing to let even a little hint of it slip past and not backtrack immediately told you the intensity of these feelings, and the acceptance of them.

It's dangerous. Too dangerous. You don't want anything to happen to Sebek. So you have to guide Baul away from you without burning this bridge.

"…human life is fleeting," Baul started, a soft timber, "when the time comes, and you must leave, then I will only have this to remember you by. Perhaps I will meet another human. Perhaps I will receive new gifts. But I cannot replace yours. I want to treasure them. Otherwise I'll-"

"If you forget, that's fine," you waved at Baul, casual as can be, "it's a nice sentiment, really, but you and I aren't immune to time. If you forget, even if you cherish everything as closely as you could, it's fine. All you can do is move on, Baul."

"But-" Baul leaned forward and the distress in his face had you quietly sighing.

"It's fine," you didn't want to but you had to keep him from talking, from keeping that promise, "as a friend, I just want you to find happiness. And if the memory of me brings you pain, then it's fine to forget me altogether. Just move forward, okay?"

"A human that doesn't mind being forgotten, huh?" Baul looked at you, as though trying to find something to comfort him, then gazed towards the ground, hands held together. "You… really have mastered the art of confusing me."

You didn't move to comfort him, but you sat on that log nonetheless. "I know. It can't be helped, so I can't really apologize for that."

"I'll get angry if you do," Baul's bard was very weak at best, spat out with tired laughter.

"I know, I know." You shrugged with a laugh yourself.

[demodraws0606]

Okay so I have made a really bad post trying to descredit Eden taking the tape as something super important so I'm just gonna drop the actual post I was preparing instead of trying to catch Eden!Culprit theories with a half baked post.

The main issue I'm having with Eden!Culprit theories right now is mostly because of stubborness that since Eden took the tape then she HAS to have done it even though if she was the culprit it would make 0 sense as to why she wouldn't just take the tape after Teruko and Ace left the room ? Like someone could've easily told her to take the tape, it's not that hard and it just makes more sense with the other evidence layed out for us.

The main reason I accepted Eden as the culprit before is because there were no possible culprits since Levi was pretty much confirmed innocent and there was still a likelyhood of Eden working for someone. However, this pretty much now rendered null and void. I swear all of this makes it sound like I have some grudge against this theory but I really need to put this subject to rest before the answer is probably revealed to us on friday. I want to make sure this theory is dead in the ground even if it's just for me personally, because it just has too many holes for me.

Also sorry if this seems mainly just a repeat of stuff I've already said, I'm not really good at structuring my posts :')

I've seen the argument that Arei actually wasn't knocked out with the turpentine because why would they bind her wrist then. However, we know she had to have been knocked because there is no struggle shown, either on her body or the floor of the playground. Weither she was suffocated or knocked out, the tape was still used on her wrist so this can't be something to be used against the idea of turpentine knocking her out. This means there is high likelyhood that it was used because it would make no sense for the culprit to just suffocate Arei before killing her (and again suffocating would show more signs of struggle than what we see on the crime scene).

There's also no other items that Arei could've been suffocated with other than the rope which would've left marks, the ball of starch clearly is stuck together most likely by turpentine which means it would've been used to knock out someone.

This would mean the culprit had to have used the turpentine to knock out Arei as well, meaning the culprit had to have gotten their hands on the turpentine.

I also refuse the idea of Eden trying to kill Ace, not only because I just find it ridiculous from a character standpoint but mainly because we know it was Hu's murder weapon that was used against Ace (the wire) considering there is no evidence of any other wire existing in this killing game that would be sharp enough to slice someone's throat. Hu's wire is part of the weapons which is evidence alone that it would be sharp enough to harm Ace bc otherwise what purpose does a wire serve. I don't believe for a second that Hu would just have her weapon lying around for anyone to yoink, unlike the turpentine which we know had to have been used by Nico and Rose when they were painting together.

In fact the story has made it clear how complicated taking someone weapon's is by having Arei's weapon only being available after she discarded it. The same can be said of the turpentine which was used out in the open and would make it easy to take with Rose's absent mindedness. If taking someone's weapon was just as easy as that, they wouldn't have given us the scene of Arei throwing out her rope like that in the first place.

Eden also has no reason to want to replicate Ace's murder onto Arei, there's basically no logical motivation behind that. In fact the progression between Ace's attempted and Arei's succesful murder proves alone that it's the same culprit (if the turpentine's existence wasn't enough). We can see the progression of the culprit trying to avoid the same mistakes they committed with Ace's failed murder (trying to snap Arei's neck to avoid the possibility of her getting saved last minute like Ace, bounding her hands potentially to make her more stable to lift upwards).

We don't even know if she figured out how the murder even worked considering it was completely undone when Teruko and Eden saw it.

Even the timing of when Eden knew about the clothing is off. We know the ball of clothing is probably sticky due to the turpentine because there is no other leads to explain why this ball of clothing is even a thing in this murder case. Turpentine is both clear and sticky, which would explain how the ball of clothing is both clear of stains and sticking together like that. Considering also that we know for a fact Ace was knocked out, and I don't think the culprit straight just shoved a jar of turpentine on his face, they most likely used some sort of tissue to smother them with (meaning it couldn't have been used to asphexiate Arei). This means the ball of clothes was used in Ace's attempted murder.

Eden only knew about the clothing change from Hu, we can only assume the same day that Ace's was murdered and probably not long before the attempt. This both clears Eden going to the changing room as the ""ball of starch"" was most likely already created before that, the only arguemnt it could be used for is that she was trying to retrieve it but it barely makes sense.

In terms of the timing of when Eden knew about the clothes and Ace's murder, if Hu only told her the same night that Ace was almost murdered it makes the timing insanely more difficult to justify. Unlike Hu who would have the pieces ready way more in advance.

All of these contradictions cannot be debunked by saying "well Eden took the tape", as it could easily be explained by the culprit asking her to take the tape from the gym or her just taking it without purpose and then the culprit getting their hands on it later.

The Eden!Culprit theory is barely hanging onto one piece of shakey evidence that can easily be broken by one justification.

If Nico can't be the culprit despite having the turpentine (well I don't think they do but 99 pourcent of Eden!culprit theories rely on Eden not really committing the attempted murder of Ace) then Eden doesn't have to be the culprit taking the tape.

The only way you can argue Eden is the culprit is if she tried to kill Ace, however this is impossible because of Hu's weapon. This is basically the summary of my main issue with the whole Eden!Culprit theory.

[hazbin-alastor]

Hazbin Hotel AU where Lilith was Alastor's contract holder, but she's actually dead now. And while normally a sinner's death would render a contract null and void, the fact that she had a daughter meant that in the wake of her death Alastor's contract was automatically transferred over to Charlie — completely unbeknownst to her.

The real reason Alastor approached Charlie is because Lilith had died and he was looking for an opportunity to somehow get Charlie to release him from the contract — without her finding out about it.

Sure, he could just tell her about it and ask her upfront to release him and maybe she'd say yes, but...

Alas, Alastor is a paranoid sonuvabitch and there's no way in hell (ha) that he'd ever willingly admit to it, not without some sort of security net in place.

So, no. He's gotta find some way to get Charlie to unknowingly free him. And that's where that little incredibly vague favor comes in—!

Wouldn't you say it was weird how quickly Alastor agreed to Charlie's do-no-harm terms? He didn't hesitate, not even for a second, didn't even take a moment to think about it. Why? Because he already knew what "favor" he was going to ask of her and, knowing that it didn't involve harming anyone in the slightest, he was able to immediately agree.

He didn't hesitate to consider it because he didn't have to, not when he already knew what he was going to ask of her.

And what favor is he going to ask for? For her to free him, of course! And why hasn't he already? Well, that's a bit harder to explain...

Perhaps the prideful Mister "I'm going to hide away in my Radio Tower like a dying cat after nearly being slaughtered instead of doing the rational, sensible thing and seeking medical help, preferably from my friends and allies" would rather avoid anyone finding out he'd ever signed his soul away at all, even if it meant that it would take longer for him to be freed.

Perhaps he'd rather first figure out how to get Charlie to free him without her realizing what she was doing.

Or perhaps he wasn't even sure yet how she would be able to go about freeing him, especially considering that this is Charlie we're talking about here, not Lilith, the original contract holder, so the circumstances to do so might be different...

Or, no, wait—!

Perhaps he needs access to the actual contract in order to be freed. And, Charlie? She has no idea where it is. And as for Alastor, he is either clueless as well or he does know where it is, he just doesn't know how to access it — yet.

Perhaps he's saving up for two favors — one to have Charlie obtain the contract for him, and one to have her break it.

Either way, the only way he's getting out of this situation is with Charlie's help — hence his sudden reappearance and highly suspicious interest in her and her budding "Happy Hotel."

.

.

.

TL;DR: Lilith died and passed her contract with Alastor onto her daughter — who still has no idea this happened — and now Alastor has to somehow trick Charlie into freeing him without her finding out about it. Luckily, she just opened up this pathetic little hotel and is likely desperate for help... It's the perfect in.

[review-anon]

Thoughts on the TDP finale?

//Alright its time.

//I have watched the bits I missed and with enough time to think about this; plus TA being my push notification to get this done, its time to talk about TDP's Deadly Life, the final class trial, the ending of Tetro Pink, the buildup to Tetro Blue and my overall thoughts.

//This is gonna be a BIG one, in fact its gonna be so big I'm actually gonna divide it into various parts so you don't get overwhelmed by it.

//As always thoughts are below the cut.

Part 1: Chapter 5's Deadly Life + Class Trial

//So just as a recap, to say the BDA was a sign things were going to shit was the understatement of the century. Not only was Mai, the one person keeping everyone together and making sure they had a cool head, is the victim here, but we have Ken and Yanagi locked in medbay, the investigation time is cut in half due to Tamba's stupidity, nobody has the stomach to investigate, and on top of that, whoever killed Mai was like Okazaki; they planned her death for a very long time.

//We don't get any noise about Mai's solo vote which means that her death must have rendered it null and void, or if it has been transferred to someone, the Masterminds aren't telling who it is gone to, wouldn't be the first time they didn't tell shit. But we don't have time for that as we got a investigation to do and we need to speedrun it. Tamba and Wada are on Team A and Hiroaki and Ojima are on Team B.

//Right off the bat, the investigation is off to a great start since Hirokai's first priority was to go to the arsenal and see if anything has been stolen from there and the answer is yes, since the entire arsenal has been completely emptyed. That is not a good sign since who would require the entire fucking arsenal to kill Mai? Yes she's a tough girl but she's also a lot weaker then normal due to taking all those punishments, if there was any good time to kill her, it was now. Hiroaki's first thoughts is to check all the rooms big enough to hold an arsenal and this runs into the first major problem;

//Yep a good chunk of the rooms are rigged with door traps that upon opening go boom. Naturally Ojima is like we can't investigate as we could die, but Hiroaki having grown wise to when Okazaki did it, said that with all the rigged rooms, the explosives cannot be non-lethal as if they tried to kill everyone, Monomoko would step in. Not that everyone is harm free since Wada gets a head injury from a door trap, which on top of his malnurnation is not a good sign indeed. Whoever we are dealing with; they are a dastly mastermind indeed.

//As for Tamba and Wada they are the autospy people and after Tamba gets Mai's body out of the pool and they examine her, the two notable things is that Mai has a massive stomach wound akin to Nagito in Goodbye Despair that goes right through her, the nature of it implies that a sword was used but who would get a sword? There's also cuts in her hands, which implies Mai was still alive when she got implied and tried to free herself, but failed. No surprising that Mai fought back, since she wouldn't go down easily.

//Sorry but as soon as I heard that Mai got stabbed all the way through my mind went to this.

//The other notable thing we find in Tamba and Wada's investigation is Wada unveils what his reward was. Again, if you require a recap, during Loyality Game students were given a choice to take a personal reward in return for a punishment that affected the entire group; 3 rewards were taken, one which is unknown who took it, resulted in nobody being allowed in their dorms, the second which Tamba took halved investigation time, and the third which Wada took resulted in everyone getting a cut, the most notable being Ken losing a eye. Its here we see what Wada's reward was; he was given excluvise access to the sercuity feed of the school. That...at first glance sounds like an OP rewards. Aside from Wada doing his best FNAF roleplay, it means that Wada would know who EVERYONE's moments were during the events of last night, which means all he needs to do is see the killer do their business and case closed, right? Well as you can tell it didn't work like that.

//For starters these cameras work a lot like the cameras in Among Us where not everything is recorded so there's blindspots, blindspots that the killer took advantage of. The second is that due to the fire from last chapter a lot of the cameras got destroyed during it so a lot of rooms don't have footage in them and lastly the camera in the pool AKA the most important one, was outright destroyed by the culprit as they knew if it caught the moment Mai died, that would be a open-and-shut case. But a few things were confrimed. Firstly Hiroaki's and Ojima's alibis are solid since the camera catches them together the whole time so neither of them could have done it. Secondly, Mai's last moments was shortly after she left Tamba and Wada to check on something as the cameras catch her going to the resource room but she never exits it. And lastly Wada himself was caught going into the arsneal and comes out...which looks mighty shady. Still its useful information.

//Poor Yanagi and Ken don't get out of the medbay during the entire investigation as the fact while Monomoko unlocks all doors during it and medbay remained shut, means that the culpirt must have locked Ken and Yanagi in there, hence why they can't get out. Ken suggests to Wada and Tamba when they come looking for them to go and get some alchoal to burn through the super glue and get them out, before though Yanagi asks the pair who has died, and when Wada apologises deeply, he knew right then and there...that Mai was the victim of the case, and Yanagi completely shuts down during the rest of the investigation, as proven when Hirokai and Ojima came to check on them as its Ken who spoke to them, not Yanagi. Kinda feel bad for him as he confessed his love to Mai and she never got a chance to answer back.

//And that's all they found which is a big pile of nothing. So to recap how fucked the cast are; they lost the most component person within the group, the smartest person was locked in medbay with the guy who was the closest to the victim, the investigation time has been halved, Tamba has a broken leg, Wada is moments from passing out, Ojima is trying really hard to prevent himself from zoning out and Hiroaki was about to go high before Ojima stopped him. On top of that, there is little to no evidence to prove who killed Mai and its VERY clear that Mai's murder was premediated as fuck. Truely these have to be THE lowest odds any cast has had going into a Class Trial. And it gets even better when just before the Class Trial starts, Wada just passes out due to malnuration and stress.

//The opening is just as great since we have Wada passed out, Ken and Yanagi who have zero clue what's going on since they were locked in medbay all the time and couldn't investigate, and naturally Tamba and Hiroaki pick this to be the best time to contuine their chapter wide bitchfest against each other. Naturally neither Ojima nor Yanagi are happy about this and tell them to stfu and keep the unneccessary arguing to a mimium. So once everything has got back the the first topic is the arsneal and where the hell it could have gone, especially with all the door traps. Its quickly figured out that the door traps were made from bombs from the arsenal and the culpirt set them up to deteer investigating and then Wada tried to bring up the cameras and this was too much for Yanagi and Ken since neither of them know what's going on so he wants them to focus on topic at a time.

//I find it hillairous the two people who did jackshit during the investigation are the ones guiding the discussion since they have their heads in gear; for Yanagi its so he wants to avenge Mai and for Ken its due to his general IQ, once Mai's body was discussed its said she was bleeding a lot but her body was clean but then again, she was discovered in the pool so the water probably washed the blood out. Also Wada's ill health is confirmed to be because he hasn't eaten since Watari died so about a week ago, which naturally causes panic. This is proof not that its needed that Wada has a severe eating disorder and if he hasn't hoarded food, he will not eat. Yanagi WAS gonna keep an eye on his but with him having a concussion, he probably has forgotten about all of it.

//Questions arise who took Wada's food stash but the problem is not only does nobody have any clue, but the dorms weren't checked then again they were locked since Decision Game so much like the Arsneal the food stash has seeemly vanished into thin air. Plus the only people that Wada has let into his room has been Ojima and Ken, which is interesting to consider....

//We have another Tamba vs Hiroaki argument which gets shot down but its here we finally find out what Tamba's reward was, which was appernately worth shaving the investigation time; and that was she got a skeleton key that would allow to access every room in the school, including the ones which were locked at night. And remember, the pool room door was unlocked when Wada and Ojima went there even though the morning announcement hasn't occurred, so things don't look good at all for Tamba especially when she claims she slept in the Laundry room all night since it was safe and locked.

//Wada also gets suspected since the cameras caught him going to the arsenal which looked suspecious but he explains the reason he went there was to grab a gun for self-defence, after all if Chiba could use a gun so could he. But this also confirms the arsenal didn't vanish during that time so it must have gone missing shortly after Wada took his Neutral Special.

//Of course the big question becomes how did Mai go from Resource Centre to the Pool. Well there's a simple solution in that since the floors are so unstable, she could have just gone through one of the holes to another room. After all, as I can testify from personal experience if the floor is rotted away enough you won't cut or break your leg.

//With such little evidence everyone need to recount their timeline of events to point out any inconsistancies, which paints a timeframe that after Tamba and Hirokai had their pissing match, Hirokai ran off and Wada and Ojima went to look for him, Ken and Yanagi went to medbay where they got locked, Mai was with Tamba for a bit but she left to go somewhere. Wada and Ojima split up since Ojima figured Hiroaki was in the baloney, Wada went back to Tamba and went to go and get some stuff to make a cast for her, which was good enough to allow her to walk. Ojima and Hirokai talked and eventutally they fell asleep. Wada and Tamba went to find Mai, they split up, Wada grabbed a gun from the arsenal, then he and Tamba fell asleep. Wada found Ojima and started looking for people and well...found the body.

//At this point the class has hit a dead end before an epithany is reached; whoever stole Wada's food stash, was the same person who has been fucking with the cast all week, and also the one who killed Mai, with that the entire cast starts to recount all the strange events and how they could happen. With Hiroaki's reward, Okazaki more or less said she stole it so anyone could have gone into her room, get it and bring to Hiroaki, with his allegics with it being confirmed he's allergic to soy milk, it would be super easy to swap the soy and normal milk bottles around content wise so Hiroaki would be pouring soy milk into his coffee, but a dead end is reached since not only does that not narrow it done, but its done so generically that anyone could do it, heck Tamba was the one who suggested the milk swap. So it all backs to her note and the big issue is that its typed...yet the only printer in the school was destroyed by the fire last chapter but then when asked about the other notes Mai has gotten, its confimed they were handwritten and were on her person so they could get destroyed in the pool. Its then a horrid truth realises it, the culprit hasn't been planning for just a week; they have been planning for a lot longer then that, as their schemes started in Chapter 4 its just Watari's suicide beat them to the punch there, thus explaining how the note was made, it was made before the printer got destroyed.

//Some more talking reveals that there's a good chance what the 3rd reward was, we know Tamba's was a skeleton key to access all rooms, Wada's was access to the sercuirty cameras but the 3rd reward, the one which banned people going to their dorms, it was proposed that the reward was a blueprint of the entire school building, which includes where all the secret passways the staff have used where. Suddenly why the Arsenal and Wada's food stash couldn't be found makes more sense, they were in a secret passageway. It also explains how Mai could have died and got to the pool, the culprit used the secret passageways. But even with this knowledge, Hiroaki knows someone is lying, can't be him or Ojima since they have airtight alibis. Can't be Ken or Yanagi since they were locked in medbay all this time; so it boils down to Wada or Tamba and since Wada was caught on camera going into the arsenal to get a gun, which had he have the secret passageways he wouldn't have done, means he's okay since that more or less clears him, which means the only person it could have been...is Tamba.

//Now I knew Tamba was not the culprit ignoring the IQ for a moment, there was just too many unanswered questions on how Tamba could have killed Mai, but I have to applaud the culprit as this was SUCH a convincing fakeout, to the point that had something not happened, Tetro Pink would have joined SDRA2 as the second Fangan to have a wrong verdict. And even Hiroaki's own logic has holes since his whole "Tamba Culprit" theory relies on her being able to open doors with the skelton key but according to him, she lied about her reward and actually had the blueprints. Tamba also had TWO despair sprites as not only she breaks down but also as Hiroaki's logic manages to convince the entire class this was right, but since my culprit guess was Ken, I was watching his behaviour, and he wasn't saying anything, which was very sus indeed. Ngl this part of the stream became a mess for me since TA went into her reguarly scheduled breakdown since well...prior to this stream I expressed my concerns that we were due a Blackened victory and naturally she said no and I needed to stop being such doom and gloom, but I think those words I said to her ate away and caused such a meltdown, even with Bubbles saying there was a massive runtime left, and she kept sobbing as much as Tamba and we got to the voting but then Monomoko said this;

//"Are you absolutely sure you want to vote?"

//That...gave Hiroaki pause as he noted to Ojima that Monomoko has NEVER said that before which means...he was wrong...Tamba is not the culprit and had they voted Tamba, they would have died. Monomoko saving the cast was a natural conclusion since throughout Tetro Pink, she's shown she's more then just a mascot as she's a thinking being with thoughts and empathy, and has often gone behind the Mastermind's backs to aid the students which means for one last time, Monomoko has managed to save them, and while this would piss off the Masterminds, we don't care they suck, and TA made such a loud cheer when this fake out was revealed to be a fake out. Also props to Hiroaki, he might have been wrong but as soon as he realised something didn't add up, he immeidately tossed aside his own theory and owned up to his mistakes. So now Tamba HAS to be innocent but then we go back to the same problem as before; nobody could do it. So the gaze is shifted to Yanagi and Ken as the question became how they got locked in medbay and turns out a gurney was used to block the entrance which due to all the lights being off, there was no way for them to check, and if there was a secret passageway as soon as one of them went asleep the other could go out and kill Mai, but between Yanagi and Ken...who?

//I think this one is obvious there is no way Yanagi is gonna kill the very woman he did a love confession to, plus while Yanagi does have the smarts to fuck with people, and it explained why Tamba and Mai didn't get physically harmed, it would also mean the culpirt has to fake their own injuries and Yanagi was vomiting which is something you cannot fake. Ken on the otherhand was high and all we have is Mai saying "Yep he's high" with no evidence where the drugs that made Ken trip balls, come from. Plus he didn't even describe his symptoms, meaning he could fake being high. And as soon as realisation kicked in literally everyone pounced on Yanagi to stop him from literally beating Ken to death for what he did, and well Ken confessed, he did it because he lost all hope after Kamimura died, the one person he cared about and who cared about him was gone. And as far as he knew nobody else cared about Kamimura. This of course wasn't true, both Tamba and Mai had fond memories of Kamimura and missed him deeply too and Watari before she went off the deep end herself, tried to reach out to Ken as she knew how tough it must be when Kamimura died, but when depression hits it clouds your judgement. Plus he lost his medication, he was getting sick of everyone around him and finally, he learnt they were being watched and people were enjoying their suffering, this all meant he tried to take everyone down.

//He messed with everyone to make it so they couldn't solve the class trial, he went for Mai since she was the easiest to get when thoughts of escape hit her, and he also made Ojima not zone by claiming he hurt him while zoned out, which he never did it was fake. Plus he explioted the zoned out state to make Ojima drunk which is such a violation that no wonder he felt disgusted. Literally everyone was disgusted with Ken for what he did but I will say this first and forthmost;

//Ken might be the single smartest culpirt ever in the history of Danganronpa.

//And that IS a compliment as Ken planned for EVERYTHING, he had every possible variable under control, he weakened everyone so they couldn't fight back, he got the victim running off on her own, he killed her in a way that couldn't be traced back to him, he also had a alibi waiting, and he explioted realtionships so a wrong verdict could be drawn. The ONLY reason Ken failed was because the mascot stepped in and that wasn't something he could have predicted. This is much better then Kanade's "Oh Sora had a hunch and she dropped some antibiotics." In fact I have this to explain how awesome this was.

//And even his dying moments was awesome since when Ken was about to be executed, rather then do a tearful goodbye, or say a final fuck you to the cast, he did a fuck you to the Masterminds by leaking the Tetro Blue Roster. HOW Ken found this out, is unknown but the point is he knew it and he started listing names and this caused Head Scientist to freak out so much that she ordered Monomoko to start the execution.

//Ken's execution is...kinda similar to Nagito's execution in all fairness which makes sense since both were killed in Chapter 5 and I bet while it was going on, Ken was happy since he was gonna be with his lover soon.

//And that was the Class Trial and yeah HOLY SHIT. HOLY SHIT as this was SO close to a Blackened win due to the lack of evidence, the stressed out mindsets of everyone, and a convincing fallgirl since Tamba killing Mai made more sense then Iroha killing Setsuka. And really the only reason they failed was due to the mascot stepping in which was something that was foreshadowed for some time now.

//I am also pleased I have a perfect streak on culprits since I guess Ken killed Mai and did it to fuck with the Killing Game and I was right! Okay so I didn't get the fact he was hating everyone since the 3rd chapter, but in terms of Culprits I'm 5/5 which I NEVER get really, normally I get one or two wrong. Here's hoping this streak contuines into Tetro Blue!

//In terms of Trials this is a 9/10 for me since the emotion, the tension and the twists were all so good and such a fitting finale to a amazing fangan.

//And that's the first part which is the entire Chapter 5 Deadly Life and Class Trial! Next part will be the Tetro Pink Finale and my final thoughts so see ya then.

[novantinuum]

Fandom: Steven Universe Rating: Teen Audiences Words: 6.0K~ Summary: In another world, he doesn’t have his mother’s sword or shield to hide behind when Bismuth lands her strike. The bubble pops. Steven falls apart. Chapter summary: In which what was once hidden becomes known.

It's been a long road getting here folks, but here we are! Almost three years after my last update, we're back on the road. I will provide the first chunk of the chapter here on my blog as a preview- but later stuff is going to be weird to format here, so please follow the AO3 link above to check out the whole thing.

Enjoy! <3

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Chapter 14: system/REBOOT, Part 2

The smoke obscures everything at first, filling this barren crack in the planet’s crust to its brim. Firmly engulfed within this plume, Ruby’s surroundings are electrified with an air of static uncertainty, an uncertainty so stark that— riding upon the wake of it— the very potential of Garnet’s future vision itself would’ve surely been rendered null and void. After all, as she’s personally experienced, such power of foresight is never completely immune to lapses in accuracy upon the advent of unexpected happenings. And she’s pretty damn certain that this… that instantly familiar warm glow she spotted, wholly enveloping Steven and Amethyst’s forms as they embraced… would count as unexpected.

Her jaw drops as a tall figure emerges from between currents of receding smoke, light pink freckles dusting their shoulders and cheeks like glistening constellations. Chocolate brown gemstones are visible upon their chest and the center of their large belly, one circular and the other irregularly pentagonal. They proudly brandish Amethyst’s leggings and Steven’s star— the salmon pink shirt having stretched into a strappy crop-top across their broad upper body. Most notably though, they appear to have three arms, two of them linked at the elbow and able to bend freely from the other. As the fusion shifts upon their heels, a thick fringe of wavy dark hair falls in front of one of their eyes… eyes which are perpetually glowing with the very same pink irises and diamond pupils Steven exhibits whenever he’s using his powers, and blown wide with shock as they attempt to process the distinct meaning of their existence for the very first time.

And boy oh boy, does Ruby sure understand that feeling. Going off of the narratives she always hears from humans, the experience of two Gems’ first dance and synchronization is somewhat akin to a baby learning to walk. It’s all untested, all brand new. And despite any amount of confusion or trepidation one might face in such a circumstance, no one else in all the universe is more equipped than you to take those first steps.

Regardless, the fusion moves right past their initial surprise to produce the most genuine, star-bright grin Ruby’s seen all week, and triumphantly pumps all three fists in the air. “What a beautiful day!” they proclaim.

Appearing suitably annoyed by their sudden attendance in this spar, their Beta kindergarten opponent harshly grinds their right foot into the soil, their face screwing into a sour grimace as they demand to know who this new Gem is supposed to be.

Now, if either one of them— Amethyst or Steven— were facing this mighty quartz’s questioning individually, Ruby’s sure they’d be doomed to crumble under the pressure. After all, Steven’s only a child, and Amethyst is cripplingly insecure. But the inherent magic of fusion is that the combination of two or more Gems is always stronger than the sum of their parts. They’re a physical embodiment of the bond held between each other, of their camaraderie and affection and love. And it’s that very love… that inner strength and belief in one other, regardless of circumstance… that blossoms into a brand new facet of existence, given life through the sheer depth of their connection.

It’s for this reason this fusion is capable of brushing off the ferocity of Jasper’s words like they’re nothing but crumbling granules of sandstone dirtying their shirt. Brimming with a renewed lease of confidence, they summon their weapons, make a grand show of fusing them into one, and proudly name themself Smoky Quartz.

“Wait— has Steven ever fused with one of you before?” Peridot asks her with burning curiosity, her expression still partially frozen in a dumbfounded little ‘o.’

“With his friend, yes— but never with a Gem,” Ruby says, her chest puffing out with considerable pride. “This is his first time!” Then, cupping her mouth with her hands, and unable to dampen that intense vindictive streak she currently harbors against their foe: “Go get her, Smoky! Make her regret she ever formed!”

The fusion serves up a snappy finger gun with their unladen hand. “You got it! One party trick coming right up…”

Flashing the two of them an almost impish smirk, Smoky doesn’t waste a single second. Immediately following a groan worthy pun about yo-yos, they catapult their weapon— a double shield linked on a central axel and tethered to Amethyst’s whip— high into the sky and back down upon Jasper, hitting her thrice in the face and gut and knocking her a few steps back.

Peridot lets out a gleeful peel of laughter as she watches this unbelievable turn of their tides, clutching a hand to her heaving chest.

Seething red, Jasper gains her bearings upon her feet once more and charges towards them with the flat of her helmet barred.

Smoky’s eyes flare wide with urgency. “Wha-oh!”

They artfully cartwheel out of the way, and manage a perfect side dodge as their opponent attempts to sling her fist directly into their face.

It’s glorious form. Absolutely impeccable by any means of assessment. In truth, Ruby thinks the odds have never been so steeply tipped in their favor while fighting against this stubborn, infuriating Homeworld Gem. So why does she still find herself powerless to quell that oh-so-familiar panic rising like coastal storm surge within her core? Why can’t she dispel the shadowy reminder of all the terrifying what-ifs that taunt her day-in and day-out, possibilities she’s unable to sort through on her own, possibilities she’s unable to truly see?

Because without Sapphire, Ruby’s just a ruby. She’s nothing, no one. It doesn’t matter how far she runs from her lowly Homeworld origins; she’ll never erase the damning, bitter fact that Gems like her were created to be replaced. And stars, everyone keeps looking to her as a leader, but she doesn’t know what she’s doing at all! Her cut of Gem wasn’t built for leadership. She didn’t come here hungering for a fight! She only followed the others to this shards-forsaken wasteland of a kindergarten because she wanted to protect them, and look at all the good that brought: an army of caged, corrupted Gems guarded by an enemy she’s grown too timid to face head-on, even though that’s literally the entire point of her!

Just, ugh—!

What a useless protector she makes.

…But maybe she’s enough to protect at least one of them. After all, her role as one of Sapphire’s guardians wasn’t all fighting and punching. The other rubies and her would also spend time discussing strategy, overseeing the whereabouts of their assignment, and keeping an eye on their immediate environment in case they need to act upon any abrupt predictions from Her Clarity. And in such moments of peril, their most important duty was to escort their assignment to a safe distance. It’s a fact of life that’s deceptively easy for a soldier like her to forget.

So, is that it, then?

Is that her purpose in this scenario?

Should she place her focus on ushering Peridot away from this battle, instead of becoming an active participant?

(Or is she just mining for ways to excuse the coward’s way out?)

Outright quivering in her boots, Ruby grabs Peridot by the arm and begins to pull her away from the heart of this battle. Her friend, however, tugs back in overt resistance.

“Wait— we can’t leave yet, I can fight!” she cries, jabbing her pointer towards the iron bars caging one of the corrupted quartzes within the excavated cliffside. “I’ve got my metal powers!”

Sweat beads on her forehead as she flushes, sinking ever deeper into the brambles of her shame. “But I, uh- I just think Smoky’s got it handled, y’know? Wouldn’t wanna get in their way, or nothin’…”

“Are you kidding?? They’re brawling against Jasper! They can use all the help they can get!”

With zero warning whatsoever, the business end of their fusion friend’s yo-yo zips towards their heads, only narrowly leaving them time to duck. They watch with slack-jawed amazement as Smoky utilizes their weapon’s stored inertia to securely wind the cord around Jasper’s torso and launch them clear into the sky. Gravity’s most primal nature dictates that what goes up must always come down, however, because mere seconds later the Homeworld Gem plummets into the chalky ground so hard that she leaves behind a small crater. A plume of rusty brown dust explodes from the collision point, entirely engulfing Ruby and Peridot.

The two of them cough as the powdery soil settles once more and visibility is restored.

“On second thought,” the former kindergartener proclaims as she brushes the debris off her unitard, “perhaps we should give them some room.”

She nods, grabbing her by the hand once more and leading her up the path to safety. Perfect, one friend protected. And as an added bonus, they can stand on the raised shelf at the far edge of this natural amphitheater (the one Amethyst treaded across before getting the sneak on Jasper a few minutes ago) and still have a clear sight of the battle.

…A battle which, going off her years of combat experience and her intimate knowledge of the parties involved, just might roll to a victorious end for Smoky in the near future. For the obvious reasons she can’t offer this prediction with any degree of confidence, but regardless, its likelihood seems to be surging skywards with each and every failed retaliating strike Jasper attempts. She’s panicking, Ruby can tell. That stubborn, reputation-obsessed Gem can attempt to hide it all she likes, but if one knows what to look for the signs are obvious. Her eyes are blown as wide as her own exit hole as she scries her surroundings for any possible advantage, and her stance has grown awkward and stiff— the very image of a traditionally offensive fighter who has been forced to assume defensive strategies for the first time in her existence.

Which is to say, the brute’s been violently knocked out of her comfort zone.

Fuming with obstinate desperation, Jasper flicks the dirt off her uniform with the back of her hand and throws herself into a viciously fast spin dash, molten bright embers trailing behind as she surges straight towards Smoky Quartz. Thankfully, the fusion sees this potential strike coming a mile away. Licking their lips, they launch their yo-yo so that its body wraps around a narrow outcropping of stone jutting out from the cliffs above them. The weapon grips the dense rock like a grappling hook. They whoop in well-earned victory, swinging up and over Jasper’s attack as effortlessly as a petal dancing on the wind.

Helpless to halt her momentum, the Beta Kindergarten quartz slams headfirst into the far cliff wall. Despite her deep-set animosity towards her Ruby can’t help but cringe at the awful clash of the impact, clutching her own vulnerable gem ever tighter within her palm. Chaos explodes. Hand-dug prisons are torn apart. This forsaken crack in the Earth is filled with clamoring footsteps once more as Jasper’s corrupted Gems claim their long-stolen freedom, fleeing in every direction.

“No!” the soldier hollers, arm outstretched as she clambers to her knees. “My army!”

Smoky lands on the ground in a sturdy crouch a few feet away. “You ready to chill out, yet?” they ask with slitted eyes, Ruby sensing a hint of Amethyst’s bitter anger seeping into their otherwise affable demeanor. “Or d’ya need another few rounds?”

Jasper falls to her hands, seemingly too exhausted to push herself to her full height at this time. Breathing heavy, she lets out a wry peal of laughter, a sound that quickly warps and bends into an emotion that’s as unrecognizable as it is unnerving as she drags her fingers inwards, scouring thick gouges in the rusty soil.

“Jaspers… never… give… up,” she huffs, her orange irises glowing like the rejuvenating embers of a rebounding wildfire as she tilts her face up to regard them head-on.

And this is where the winds of fate begin to shift.

The embers catch.

The dry brush underfoot erupts into a violent rush of flame.

Jasper quickly averts her eyes from Smoky, her wanting gaze falling upon the lone cage still left intact, its metal bars not destroyed by her prior collision with the wall. Within… stands the last Gem of her corrupted army, roaring in clear displeasure at the frenzy of commotion occurring outside. The quartz delivers a devious, knowing smirk as they slide their zealous glance away from that captive Gem and back to Smoky.

Ruby hates to admit it, but she knows exactly what she’s planning. She’s already seen this type of emotion flit across Jasper’s features before, months back when she emerged from the burning rubble of her ship— humiliated by her defeat at the hands of a being she deemed impure— and caught a fleeing Lazuli by the wrist. She’s seen it from Pearl, who— feeling just as inadequate and small as she herself does this very second— ultimately stumbled under the pressure and made one of the biggest mistakes of her whole life. Hell, Ruby’s experienced this desire herself, albeit in a far different context… lovely and love-sick amidst Sapphire’s abrupt departure, briefly entertaining a fleeting, selfish thought that she dares not act upon.

Fusion-lust.

Jasper intends to force a fusion with the last corrupted quartz still held captive in her prison.

She grits her teeth, thousands upon thousands of possible futures full of her own cowardice and hesitation burning to blackened cinders under the heat of her fury. Fusion is special. Fusion is sacred! It’s like… a feeling brought to life, a spellbinding rush of togetherness, the mystifying sensation of becoming someone who— on the metaphoric scale of things— must’ve burst into some intangible form of existence the very moment a fusion’s partners first met. Despite whatever twisted rhetoric Homeworld may spew to the Gems chained under its rule, fusion definitely isn’t meant to be a means of increasing one’s power. It isn’t meant to be used as a mode of control or coercion. And stars above, she’ll be damned if she lets anyone abuse this special type of relationship on her planet.

No more hiding.

No more hesitation.

The only soul in this entire Kindergarten who can put an end to this is her.

“Peridot!” she calls, grasping her friend by the shoulders to capture her full attention. “There’s no time to explain, but I have a plan. When I call for you, use your metal powers to break open that last cage, right down there!”

Peridot’s expression— halfway obscured behind her tinted visor— spins with ample confusion amidst the abruptness of this request. “B-but I thought we were spectating!”

Ruby bites at her lip, averting her nervous gaze for just a moment, just long enough to contemplate all the impulsive choices that have led her to the edge of this impossibly steep precipice. All of her insecurity, her terror, her doubt. Every timid half-step forwards, inevitably followed by a full step back. In many ways, she feels as if she hasn’t committed to a single fearless act since the day she pushed her love out of a rebel’s striking range and singlehandedly changed the entire course of reality. Where’d that Ruby go? The Ruby who dares to create ripples with every fiery footfall?

And most importantly— for the good of her planet, for the good of her family— can she become that Gem again?

“I can’t just watch…” she admits, clenching her fists at her side. “Not anymore. I’m going in.”

Steeling herself for the jump, she lowers to her haunches, nervously tapping her fingers against her gem-less palm.

“This is for you, Sapphy,” she whispers to herself, and then surges upwards into a sprint.

Her toes leave the ground right at the rocky shelf’s edge.

Hollering in furious dissent, the squat Gem practically soars over the Homeworld-aligned quartz thanks to the subtle updrafts produced by the waves of flame fanning out from her feet. She barely has time to process the confusion wresting control of Jasper’s otherwise confident countenance— or the wide, knowing grin Smoky levels towards her— as she triumphantly lands upon the battlefield and sets her plan roaring into motion.

Ruby clutches her gem tight within her grasp (a long-held defensive habit she can never seem to shake), and bursts into a fiery sprint around her foe. The intense friction and heat only feeds the white hot blaze licking up around her feet as she traces a full circle around Jasper, locking her securely within a cage of fire. This ring won’t last forever, but it’s good enough as a distraction for what comes next.

“Peridot, now!” she shouts, desperately hoping her friend can hear her over the untamed roar of the inferno she’s generating… desperately hoping her new metal powers work this time and help her set that poor corrupted Gem free.

But despite the crushing anxiety of all these unknowns, she doesn’t dare take her eyes off her foe as she continues to spiral around her, pushing the scorching walls of this prison ever inwards. She doesn’t dare let up her pace, doesn’t dare allow Jasper even an inch of leeway to escape. The gemstone inlaid within her palm pulsates with an intense thrum of energy, burning brighter than it has her entire five thousand nine hundred years of existence. A breathless, lilting laugh slips from between her lips, tinged with tones of relief and sheer, boundless exhilaration. So this is what true bravery feels like, true power. This is what it feels like to genuinely be a Crystal Gem— not merely by proxy of the fusion she forms, but as her own person, too.

Far beyond her inferno’s ceaseless thrum, she can make out the rusty moans of bending metal… the victorious roar of the last corrupted quartz as it pushes free from its damaged cage and bolts away from this cursed amphitheater. She lets out a whoop of delight, pumping her fists to the sky.

And then her gambit falls apart.

Jasper’s own fist connects with her cheek before Smoky can even holler her name in warning, the impact knocking her clear out of her spiraling sprint and face first into the chalky soil underfoot. She hacks and coughs lying there amidst the resultant plume of dust, vying with every facet of her being not to crumple under the dawning prospect of having to defend herself in solo combat. Her jaw aches, but not enough to dampen her resolve. Not now. Not yet. Instead— standing stubbornly to her feet— she grits her teeth, summons her gauntlets, and swings back.

The mighty kindergarten quartz ducks effortlessly. She grins, the midday sun glinting off the edge of her helm’s visor, and then positions herself for the final strike.

__

[Continue to AO3 via link above for the rest]

[onesidedradiostatic]

Weird headcanon here, but... what if when an overlord gets overthrown/loses their territory, all the souls contracted to them go to the victor?

possibly, but currently our like only example we have is husk who gambled his souls away. I guess potentially the souls that belonged to the overlords alastor took down now belong alastor? alternatively, all contracts from defeated overlords would be broken and the souls would be returned to their owners.

now say if an overlord were to be exterminated, I don't think the souls would suddenly go to the exorcists, I think in that case it would most likely be a case of contracts rendered null and void

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Darrell Lucus at Loud, Liberal, Christian:

One of the few diehard Donald Trump supporters among my friends often says that I shouldn’t let my disgust at Trump’s behavior blind me to what he’s supposedly doing for the country. She frequently says, “You’re not inviting him to dinner!” She also suggests that I’m letting my outrage at Trump’s outrages—something that has once again become an almost daily occurrence since his return to the White House—override my love for the country. Like most of us who have recoiled in disgust at Trump ever since he came down the escalator, I despise Trump because I love my country. And like most of us who have recoiled in disgust at Trump over the years, I despise Trump because, time and again, he has shown that despite his ranting about how Democrats and their handmaidens in the “FAKE NEWS media” don’t let him do his job, he hasn’t even begun to understand what his job is. Yet another reminder of this came with Trump’s displays on social media on Easter Sunday.

As much of the East Coast was gearing up to go to church, Trump fired off this on Truth Social. Before you ask—this is real. So, once again, we have another deranged holiday social media post from Trump. Posts like this are why I have never even considered supporting him, and why I will never vote Republican for anything, anywhere again until the GOP shakes itself loose from him. You don’t need any special training to know that anyone who posts something like this is not well. If anyone else posted something like this, people would rightly be questioning their sanity. Why should Trump get a pass for this? I’ve asked this question for a decade every time he fires off a deranged post along these lines—and I’ve yet to get an answer that makes any kind of sense.

This is especially personal for me, as someone who has been taken advantage of by a lot of people in my 47 years on this planet. Most of my longtime readers and friends know about two of the most outrageous examples. In my freshman year at Carolina, I was tricked into joining an abusive and outright cultish hypercharismatic group. It took me six months to get out of there—a little over 180 days. By my reckoning, they lied to me 180 times, if not more. Years later, I spent three years being married to an abusive and controlling woman who yelled, screamed and cursed at me so often that when I finally left, I was as beaten down as anyone who had been slapped or punched by their spouse. Even worse, I discovered that this woman had willfully concealed her history of abusing her own children—a history that, as far as I’m concerned, rendered that marriage morally null and void. More recently, I discovered not long after I got married for the second time legally and the first time morally that my father—or rather, my sperm donor—had willfully stayed on third shift as a city bus driver in order to facilitate cheating on my mother. I had wondered why he would stay on third knowing that he had a teacher for a wife and two sons at home. He claimed the timing of first shift didn’t work—an argument that didn’t cut ice, given that he was the union rep there for years and could have lobbied for changes. Now I knew why he hadn’t done so. While I’ve expressed my feelings about these matters on social media, I would never, ever, do so in a manner as deranged as Trump has done. It’s part of the reason I bristle at the times that people excuse Trump’s behavior because at bottom, he’s a guy from Queens. I’m half North Jerseyan—basically from a different part of the same country as Trump. There’s one big difference, though. Unlike Trump, I know how to control my tongue—and my thumbs. Granted, a few of my friends on both sides of the aisle have been concerned about how I turn the screws on abusive churches. But I would never, ever talk about them in the manner that Trump talks about people whom he thinks have wronged him. [...] That Trump found it acceptable to make a post this deranged was bad enough. But to pile obscenity on top of insult, he ordered it on the official White House social media channels. No, I’m not kidding. Here’s how it looked on Instagram. [...] Think about it, folks. The president of the United States found it acceptable to fire off a deranged attack against his foes—and then found it acceptable to post it on official social media channels.

Darrell Lucus is right: Donald Trump is manifestly unfit to continue holding office, as his Easter temper tantrum post on Truth Social is more evidence.